By Guest Blogger Gerard Fairley
Branding your salon or spa is a crucial part of your business development for long term success. So, what does branding really mean? Branding is the proprietary visual, emotional, and rational image associated with your company. Branding is communicating your businesses core attributes and qualities, and creating a simple but strong emotional (and visual) association of those qualities in the minds of your potential customers. Branding creates loyalty. The name of your salon or spa is the first step. Creating a slogan that communicates the qualities of your business might be a second means of branding. Does your spa offer premium styling and coloring services that costs a bit more for the quality, or does your salon offer inexpensive, fast service? The purpose of having people remember the brand name and have positive associations with that brand is to make their selection easier and enhance the value and satisfaction they get.
Building a brand around your spa or salon will help you generate instant recognition. It is all about synergy and in this day and age, many times it starts with your website. Why? Because more often than not, this is what your potential customer sees first.
People are not picking up the phone book any longer, they are now firing up Google or Bing and conducting searches for reviews or coupons and special offers. Does your brand carry into your physical store? Has your website been updated to at least keep up with the times? Do you maintain a weekly blog? All these questions are important when building the brand of your spa or salon. Do you answer emails, questions and acknowledge comments? Do you do good work? Do you have a logo? What are people saying about you?
Your customer is asking these questions: Who are You? What are you about? Who has used your service…and did they like the experience?
Be your own brand;…. brand yourself first, and then extend this to your company.
Brand yourself as a leader, as an expert, an innovator and this will immediately allow you to stand out from the crowd of the other people in your beauty niche. This will generate that positive talk, feedback and buzz. You want your customers to “ooh and ahh” about you to their friends. This is far more valuable than a Facebook Fan Page update, or a paid ad on Yelp.
Don’t be cheap, spend a little money and get a professional logo design that embodies the essence of your salon or spa. If you are a mobile stylist without a brick and mortar, this is even more important for you. Get a nice logo and while you’re at it; have it imprinted onto some promotional giveaways. Think of your customer as you select a relevant item like a beauty bag, a nail kit, water bottle, hat etc. These giveaways can be used in contests or just as a thank you to your current customers. Your existing customers are your most powerful form of advertising. A quality promotional item like a hand bag with your logo on it, in the hands of your customer…now doesn’t that sound like a powerful piece of marketing?
Gerard Fairley is a Salon and Spa Consultant based out of Atlanta GA, with over six years of Internet and Social Media Marketing expertise. Feel free to contact him and find out more about marketing your spa or salon business by visiting his website, Spa Salon Mobile Marketing.
